Amazing how all these ‘lost’ albums keep turning up! I am pleased that they do but the hype around them is amusing. The tapes of the Monk session were, according to the story, picked out of a skip twenty years ago and since then have been in various hands before Gearbox got hold of them to work their magic.

Now Gearbox are going to town on this release. They are doing a vinyl version with a clear vinyl 180 gram 33rpm LP. It will be a limited edition with only 500 availableall individually hand-numbered! There will also be a signature-embossed Val Wilmer photographic print. Gearbox have used the 1967 Haeco Scully lathe, the exact same set-up that Blue Note used. For most people there will be a CD or a streamed version.

It has been argued that the Columbia studio records of this period are not Monk’s best work. However, the groups’ concert work has been well received. The playing of Charlie Rouse has gradually been re-evaluated. Rouse was with Monk quartet from 1959 to 1970; he knew Monk’s music almost as well as the pianist. He could negotiate the unique curlicues of the idiosyncratic pieces with sophisticated aplomb. He accommodated his music to the problems that the pianist who comped with such originality under his playing regularly challenged him with. The unique tone, just the interesting side of bland, served Rouse well.

Frankie Dunlop came to Monk from Ellington and Maynard Ferguson and proved to be one of the best Monk drummers; his work was both precise and open. The unexpected fills and quirky drum comments often inspired the pianist. There are examples of this across the pieces on the album. John Ore, the still calm centre of the group, had worked with Elmo Hope and Bud Powell and went on to work with Sun Ra. He was a very melodic bassist who thrived on the solo opportunities given by Monk each evening.

‘Bye Ya’ starts with Dunlop and you hear the quality of the recording from the resonance of the drums. The Caribbean influence drive Rouse who solos for half of the track. Monk’s comping under Rouse’s solo on ‘Nutty’ are worth playing again just to listen to how Monk drives and prompts. Monk is also at times is very economical with what he does, he knows when to play and when to sit out.

‘I’m Getting Sentimental Over You’ is one of those tunes, ‘Lulu’s Back in Town’ is another, that Monk pulls out from the song archives and ennobles them nightly. The tune is given the kind of reading that would have surprised the original composer.

Humphrey Lyttelton described the effect of hearing Monk as, like listening to a musical genius sitting down at a piano keyboard for the first time. This solo on ‘Body and Soul’ is slow, full of thinking, percussive and intensely musical.

The recording is good and the tweaking by Gearbox has given both brightness and depth to the music.

The album is a great example of Monk’s best sixties band. Every note that this group played is worthy of preservation. It is good that it is now in circulation.